Neil Vora

Why you should listen

Neil Vora is a physician-epidemiologist with Conservation International, where he leads its efforts on pandemic prevention. Throughout his career, he has focused on the link between human health and the health of the planet, with an eye towards the effects of the destruction of nature. He served for nearly a decade with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and a commander in the US Public Health Service (USPHS). He deployed for CDC to Liberia in 2014 and to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019 to assist in the responses to the two largest Ebola outbreaks ever. He previously led the investigation of a newly discovered virus in the country of Georgia related to the smallpox virus. From 2020-2021, he developed and led New York City’s COVID-19 contact tracing program, overseeing a team of more than 3,000 people who traced over one million cases and contacts.

Dr. Vora has published numerous articles in leading scientific journals including Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet and others. He is currently an associate editor at CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, an adjunct professor of internal medicine and infectious diseases at Columbia University and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2022, he was selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar. He still sees patients in a public tuberculosis clinic in New York City and has received numerous accolades for his work, including the USPHS Physician Researcher of the Year Award, CDC James H. Steele Veterinary Public Health Award and CDC Donald C. Mackel Memorial Award.